Board of Directors

Board of Directors

David Caffey

David Caffey, Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Northern Colorado, is internationally recognized as a jazz composer, arranger, and educator. He was inducted into the California Jazz Education Hall of Fame in 2011.

Brian Coyle is Director of Jazz Studies and Professor of Music at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He is an active clinician, adjudicator, and composer who has executive leadership experience with national and international jazz organizations.

Christine Jensen

The Montreal-based composer, saxophonist and conductor is regarded as one of Canada’s most compelling jazz artists with her orchestra and small ensemble writing and performance. The multiple Juno-Award winning composer is the 2016 recipient of Downbeat’s Critics Rising Star Poll for Arranger and Jazz Orchestra. She is on faculty at McGill University and University of Sherbrooke, where she teaches composition and ensembles, as well as being leader of Orchestre National Jazz de Montreal.

James Miley

James Miley, winner of the Gil Evans Fellowship in Jazz Composition, is a pianist and composer living in Oregon. He studied composition and jazz improvisation with Steve Owen, David Roitstein, and Larry Koonse, and currently serves as Director of the Jazz and Improvisational Music Program at Willamette University.

Chuck Owen

Chuck Owen is a Guggenheim Fellow, GRAMMY® nominee, and Distinguished University Professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL. He has past executive leadership experience with international jazz organizations and is the founder of the original Center for Jazz Composition.

Rufus Reid

Rufus Reid is a seasoned fifty-year veteran Jazz Bassist, a Guggenheim Fellow, a two-time Grammy nominee, and Professor Emeritus from William Paterson University. He has had experience as a Board of Director member of the International Society of Bassists and the Chamber Music America organizations.

Ellen Rowe

Ellen Rowe is Professor and Chair of the Department of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation at the University of Michigan. She is active as a pianist, composer and arranger and is published by Sierra Music and Doug Beach Music.

Dave Stamps

Dave Stamps is Director of Jazz Studies and an Assistant Professor of Music at Gustavus Adolphus College near Minneapolis, MN. He is an active clinician, adjudicator, and composer with leadership experience in music publishing, event production, and is the co-developer of the original Center for Jazz Composition.

Omar Thomas

Hailed by Herbie Hancock as showing "great promise as a new voice in the further development of jazz in the future," composer, arranger, and bandleader Omar Thomas has worked with a number of music's most respected artists, and has contributed to Grammy-winning projects. Omar is an Associate Professor of Harmony at Berklee College of Music, where he also teaches in the Jazz Composition department.

Ryan Truesdell

Ryan Truesdell is a GRAMMY® winning producer, composer, arranger and one of the foremost scholars on the music of Gil Evans. He has produced two GRAMMY® nominated albums with his award-winning Gil Evans Project – Centennial and Lines of Color – as well as recording projects for Maria Schneider and Bob Brookmeyer. Truesdell is also an in-demand clinician, educator and guest artist, and works with many highly regarded programs around the world.